Does the Composition of Government Reflect Citizens' Party Preferences?
This paper looks into the impact of electoral systems on the representation of citizens' party preferences. We assess representation using questions asking people to indicate how much they like/dislike parties in modules 1, 2, and 3 of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. We find that proportional systems are better at representing the overall distribution of preferences and at including in cabinet citizens' first preferences. However, non-proportional systems are better at including in cabinet the party that is most liked overall, at excluding the least liked party, at producing an outcome whereby governing parties are better liked overall than non-governing parties, and having fewer citizens whose least liked party is in cabinet